Textile picker



E. H. PARKER TEXTILE PICKER Jan, .28 1936.

Filed June 27, 1934 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Jam, 28, HQBG. E. H PARKER' 2,28,9H

TEXT ILE PICKER Filed June 27, 1934 2 Shets-Sheet 2 2%667 zZ/zi24rfaef Patented Jan. 28, 1936 FFEE TEXTEE PIGKER tion of Massachusetts Application June 27, 1934, Serial No. 732,557

3 Claims.

' into textile yarns or fabric.

Such machines are commonly known to the trade as rag or shoddy pickers and usually comprise as essential elements a large picker cylinder or drum (rotating at high speed about a horizontal axis and having its periphery thickly studded with projecting pins) and a pair of feed rolls arranged to deliver the stock at a relatively low linear speed for contact with the ends of the pins on the drum. Auxiliary elements, for instance, a feed belt or apron for delivering the rag stock to the bite of the feed rolls, are commonly provided.

To produce reworked stock of the desired resiliency and length of fiber, it is desirable that the picker open up or pull apart the rag stock in such a way as to produce a thready product free, as far as may be, from bits, that is to say, fragments of unpicked material, and that this opening up or picking be accomplished with as little grinding, cutting, or actual disintegration of the constituent fibers material as possible. To this end the picker pins must be kept sharp, that is to say, they must have distinct points or properly shaped edges or surfaces for engagement with the rag stock wrapped about the upper feed roll. Failure to keep the pins properly sharpened substantially reduces production and sets up so much friction as may actually cause charring of the rag stock at the feed rolls. When the pins have become so dulled as to lose their efiiciency, in so far as rapid raveling or picking of the material is concerned, the machine must be stopped and the pins on the drum must be sharpened or ground, an operation which consumes a very considerable interval of time,demands skill on the part of the operator performing the sharpening operation,and keeps the picking machine out of production, thus cutting down its efiiciency very materially.

Pointed or conically tipped pins are sometimes used, but the tremendous wear to which the pins are subjected makes it quite difiicult to keep such points from breaking or bending, or at least from wearing with great rapidity, and for this reason among others, pins having their ends ground oif to a surface substantially concentric with that of the periphery of the picker drum are commonly employed where the character of the work perrm'ts. When the advancing face of such a pin becomes so worn after a certain period of use as to lose its efficiency, the drum may be removed from its bearings and reversed so as to turn in the opposite direction, thus utilizing the unworn edges or surfaces at the opposite side of the pin. In this way the frequency of regrinding is reduced.

Pins of circular cross section have been employed, but it is dinicult to anchor such pins in the lags so as to keep them from turning, and accordingly it has been customary to flatten or slab off opposite sides of the round wire or rod from which the pins are made, so that when fixed in the lag they will not turn. In thus making flattened pins from round stock, the narrow or front faces of the pins have been left with a rounded or arcuate contour in transverse section, and such a pin, as it wears, tends rapidly to as sume a more or less spherical curvature at its advancing active corner, thus quickly losing any semblance of a cutting edge or effective operating surface.

I have now discovered, as the result of extended experiments, that by the use of a pin which is of substantially true rectangular contour at least at its active portion, that is to say near its free extremity, unexpectedly improved results are attained. It is to be noted that in setting these improved pins in the lag they are accurately disposed, so that the substantially fiat front face of each pin will be disposed in an axial plane of the picker drum, and thus the cutting edge at the intersection of the front face of the pin with the end face thereof will be substantially parallel to the axis of the drum. When pins of this type and thus disposed begin to wear, the resulting work engaging surface for contact with the rag stock becomes approximately cylindrical,

with all of the transverse elements of the cylindrical surface straight and parallel to the axis of the drum, and in practice such surface, although not actually a cutting edge, is far more efiective to perform the intended function than a spherically curved surface such as results from the wear of the older type of pin. Thus the pin of rectangular section may be used for a much longer time than a cylindrical pin without regrinding.

The usual practice in building picker drums of eral bending.

modern type is to provide the drum with a metallic body and to furnish such body with an exterior, removable clothing consisting of wooden lags bolted to the drum proper, eachlag carrying its proper complement of projecting pins. The most practical method of setting a pin of non-circular cross section in such a drum lag, as thus far devised, is to drill a hole through the lag by means of an ordinary cylindrical drill or bit, the hole being of a diameter intermediate the shortest and longest transverse dimensions of the pin, and then to breach this opening to reduce it approximately to the desired contour. However, when the pin is driven into this broached hole, a portion of the cylindrical wall of, the original opening remains at each side of the pin and the pin bears only at its forward and rear edges. Pins set in this manner tend to cut into the lag, due to the concentrated pressure at the rear edge of the pin, and this 'gradu.

ally loosens the pin in' its hole, which permits bending of thepin and/or splitting of the lag.

In accordance with the present invention, the above difficulties are avoided and further advantages obtained by providing that portion of the pin which enters the hole or socket in the lag with lateral projections such that the pin completely fills the opening in the lag, "thus obtaining additional bearing surface between the pin and lag so distributing the pressure load that cutting the lag and loosening of the pin is prevented. A preferred means of accomplishing the result is to provide the opposite lateral faces of the pin with projecting, longitudinally extending buttress elements, preferably integral with the pin and extending longitudinally from a point nearthe inner end of the pin toward the free end of the latter, but which preferably ter= minate at a substantial distance from such free end. The outer surfaces of these abutments are curved to an are having a radius equal to or slightly greater than that of the drill used in drilling the hole in the lag so that when-driven into the broached holes they completely fill up the remaining portions of the original circular hole in the lag at either side of the pin, and since the pin isyin effect thickened by these buttresses, the pin is thus strengthened to resist lat- Not only is the pin thus held more securely in the leg, but the added stiffness makes the pin better able to stand lateral thrusts such as are sometimes imposed by the enclosure of hard foreign bodies in the raw stock. Furthermore, by reason of this stiffening of the pin, I may makethe outer end portion of the pin, beyond the buttresses, of substantially uniform thickness (in the axial direction of the drum),

so that the break betweenpins in successive rows may remain constant regardless of repeated sharpenings or" the pins. 1

While I have herein disclosed one desirable embodiment of the invention by way of exampie, I'wish it to be understood that this embodiment thus selected'is for illustrative purposes and that other and equivalent arrangements are regarded as within the scope of the invention.

In the accompanying drawings, in which a preferred embodiment has been illustrated by way of example:

Fig. 1 is a side elevation, to large scale, illustrating one desirable form of picker pin 'constructed'in accordance Withth present inven-' tion;

Fig. 2 is a front (or rear) elevation of the impro ed' r Fig. 3 is a plan view of the pin;

Fig. 4 is a transverse section, substantially on the line 4-4 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a fragmentary plan view of a picker drum lag having a plurality of the improved pins set therein; V

Fig. 6 is a transverse section through the la of Fig. 5;

Fig. 7 is a fragmentary plan view of a picker lag illustrating the preferred mode of forming a H pin-receiving socket in the lag, and also showing in section one of my improved pins seated in such socket;

Fig. 8 is a section on the line 8-8 of Fig. 7

Fig. 9 is a fragmentary vertical section, to small scale, illustrating a picking machine of the general type to which the present invention relates;

Fig. 10 is a fragmentary section similar to Fig. 6 but illustrating a modified form of picker lag;

Fig. 11 is an'elevation, similar to Fig. 2, showing a modified construction;

Fig. 12 is a section, to larger scale, on line l2-I2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 13 is a fragmentary perspective view to larger scale, of the free end portion of the pin ,in Fig. .1, showing its'shape immediately after grinding;

Fig. 14 is a perspective of the pin tip of Fig.

13 after it has become worn during rotation of the drum in one direction;

15 is a view similar to Fig.14 but showing the pin disposed for a second period of use be- 7 fore regrinding; and r Fig. 16 is a transverse section illustrating the shape of pin heretofore commonly used.

In accordance with the present invention the improved pin I, which may be made of any suitable material, for example an alloy steel, heat treated if desired to obtain the desired toughness, hardness, and wear-resistant qualities, comprises an elongated body portion preferably of generally rectangular contour in transverse section. In thus referring to the body portion of the pm as being of generally rectangular contour, I do'not thereby confine myself, as respectsthev inner,

faces 4 and 5. In a preferred construction, the

lateral faces 2 and 3 are wider than the front and rear faces, a and 5, the pin being thicker in a direction extending circumferentially of the picker drum than in the axial direction of the drum. However, I .contemplatethat for certain purposes the body of the pin may be substantially square, or even thicker laterally than from front to rear. As shown in Figs. 1, 2, 3, and 12 to 15, the free, outer, or tip portion of the plnis as nearly rectangular in contour as it is practicable to make it, having the substantially an lateral faces 2 and 3 and the substantially fiat front and rear faces 4 and 5 respectively.

These sur-' faces, particularly the surfaces 4 and 5 are.

desirably made flat by grindingor some equivalent process. V

The lower or inner end of the pin preferably is furnished with a head 6 to prevent-the pin from moving endwise from out ofits so'cketin the drum lag; and from some point intermediate its length, for example, as indicated at l in Fig. 1, the pin may taper in one dimension at least, and, as shown, in both dimensions, toward its free or outer extremity. The outer end of the pin has a surface 8, substantially perpendicular to the axis of the pin, but which, in fact, may be slightly arcuate and concentric with the outer curved peripheral surface of the picker drum lag, although to all intents and purposes this surface 8 is substantially plain. When the pin has been newly ground, this surface meets the front and rear faces 4* and of the pin in distinct rectilinear edges 9 and H3.

In thus describing the outer end surface 8 of the pin and the edges 9 and i9, reference is had to the ideal condition of the pin, for example, immediately after grinding and before the end of the pin has become substantially worn in service. As the pin is subjected to use, for example with the face i in advance so that the edge 9 is the operative edge, the material of the pin at the edge 9 is gradually worn away so as eventually to form a work-engaging surface 9 (Fig. 14) which is of substantially cylindrical contour, with the elements of the cylindrical surface substantially perpendicular to the wider faces 2 and 3 of the pin and parallel to the longitudinal edge of the lag. However, such wear does not substan tially reduce the thickness (axially of the drum) of the pin at its tip or result in the formation of a spherically curved tip such as is commonly produced when an ordinary pin wears, and by reversing the picker drum in its bearings, the worn pin may be disposed with the edge It in advance so as to obtain a substantial further period of wear before regrinding.

The wider faces 2 and 3 of the body of the pin preferably are provided with elongate projections or abutments i i and I 2, respectively, preferably integral with the material of the pin and which may conveniently be formed by a rolling or a diepress operation. These abutments are of a radius equaling or slightly exceeding that of the drill used in making the holes 2 i, hereinafter referred to, and are thus narrower than the faces 2 and 3. They extend along the pin throughout the base or inner portion of the latter but preferably terminate at a distance from its outer end, for example, in a smoothly rounded surface at [3 approximately at the point where the pin begins to taper.

Referring to Fig. 9, I have indicated diagrammatically and in section a picker machine of the general class to which this invention particularly relates. Such a machine is furnished with a frame i i, supporting bearings for the horizontal, power driven shaft l5 which carries a drum !6, usually of metal, having its peripheral surface clothed with a series of closely set wooden lags or strips H which are secured to the drum proper by bolts or in any other suitable way. These lags in turn form the immediate supports for .the pins l. The machine also comprises power driven feed rolls l8 and i9 and preferably a feed apron 2B. As the rag stock is delievered by the apron 20 into the bite of the feed rolls, it is seized by the latter and a portion of the stock wraps around the upper roll iii, forming a lap thereon wh ch is engaged by the pins i as the drum it rotates. This impact of the multitude of teeth or pins against the rag material rapidly ravels out picks apart the material and the ravelings or loose fibers are delivered to any suitable point, commonly by pneumatic means.

In preparing the lags for the reception of the substantially rectangular pins such as above described, I first proceed to drill circular holes 2! through the lag, as indicated in Fig. 7 for example, such holes being of a diameter preferably intermediate the transverse and front-to-rear dimensions of the body portions of the pins. These holes are then broached so as to reduce them to the shape indicated at the right-hand side of Fig. '7,the holes then being of more or less rectangular contour, as indicated at 22, corresponding in size and shape to the body portion of the pin, but having the lateral segmental bays or recesses 23 and 24, which are remainders of the original circular hole, at the longer faces of the opening.

By providing my improved pin with buttresses II and i2, which are of approximately the same radius as the curved walls of the bays or recesses 23 and 24, the pin, when driven into the opening in the lag, substantially fills the opening as shown in the sectional view of the pin at the upper part of Fig. 7. The pin not only finds a bearing surface against the front and rear wall of the opening but also against the curved surfaces of the bays or recesses 23 and 2t, and thus the pressure of the pin against the wood of the lag is more widely distributed. There is thus little danger of cutting or splitting the lag, or loosening the pin. Furthermore, by providing the buttresses which extend longitudinally of the pin and beyond the outer surface of the lag, the pins are stiffened so that lateral bending of the pins is largely prevented.

By reason of the additional stiffness imparted by these buttresses, I find it possible to make the pins of the form shown in Fig. 11. In this arrangement the body portion of the pin, with its buttresses H and I2 is substantially like that of Fig. 1, but beyond the ends it of the buttresses the lateral faces 2 and 3 may be parallel, instead of converging toward the tip as in Fig. 1. This parallel arrangement is advantageous in that repeated sharpening does not vary the space or break between the proximate faces of pins in adjacent circumferential rows.

The pins are set in the lags in staggered relation, as indicated generally in Fig. 5, such novel arrangement providing a substantially uniform spacing of the rows of pins circumferentially of the drum and also providing for a substantially uniform spacing, longitudinally of the drum, of pins in adjacent rows.

As indicated in Fig. 10, I may, if desired, interpose between the outer and inner layers ll and li of the lag, an insert of plywood comprising five or more layers l'l These layers may be wood, indurated fiber, textile fabric, metal or other suitable material rigidly secured together, by appropriate means, for example glue, cement, a phenol-formaldehyde condensation product, or other preferably waterproof adhesive and with the grain of the wood, if wood be employed, disposed crosswise in adjacent plies. Such an arrangement is highly advantageous in that it prevents the lags from warping and also provides a structure which is strong and capable of resisting splitting pressure in response to the forces exerted by the individual pins where they seat in their sockets in the lag.

While I have illustrated one desirable embodiment of my improved pin, and in particular one in which the buttress members are integral with the pin, I contemplate that under some circumstances some at least of the advantages of i the invention might be obtained were the buttress members made separate from the pin or of different materials, and I further contemplate variations in the length of these buttress members and in the relative Widths of such buttress 7 members and the pin as falling within the scope r the bays of the hole in the lag whereby the pin finds bearing surfaces not only against the front and rear walls of the rectangular opening but also against the curved walls of the bays, the outer portion of the pin also being of substantially rectangular cross section and the buttresses extending outwardly beyond the lag to a distance sufiicient to stiffen the pin and prevent its bend ing during use. i

2. A picker pin for use with a picker drum lag,

said pin having a body portion designed tofit snugly in a preformed hole in such a lag, the

body portion of the pin being of substantially rectangular elongate cross section, its front and rear faces being narrower than its side faces, the latter faces having integral segmental buttresses projecting from them, the curved surface of each 6 buttress being the arc of a circle of a diameter intermediate the transverse and front-to-rear dimensions of the body portion of the pin, said buttresses extending longitudinally of the pin beyond its body portion but terminating at a sub- 10 stantial distance from the free end of the pin, the free end portion of the pin being substantially rectangular in transverse section.

3. A picker pin for use in a picker drum lag, said picker pin having a body portion of generally rectangular elongate cross section and having segmental buttresses projecting from its 0pposite Wider faces, the curved surfaces of said abutments being arcs of a circle of a diameter intermediate the transverse and front-to-rear dimensions of the'body portion of the pin, the buttresses extending longitudinally of the 'pin 7 beyond its body portion but terminating at a substantial distance from the free end of the pin, the free end portion of the pin beyond the buttresses being of substantially rectangular cross section and of substantially uniform transverse thickness from the point at which'the buttresses terminate to its free' extremity;

EDWARD H. PARKER; 

